The aim of this paper is to approach transgenerational transmission aspects of the traumatic experience of terror in the large social group. The author makes use of the notion of chosen trauma, coined by Vamik Volkan, which shows how specific mental representations of a traumatizing historical event, shared by the large group, can be transmitted to descendants and eventually used by them as a linking factor of their large group. The above issues, along with the importance of reversal of helplessness and of inability to mourn, are discussed; relevant clinical material focusing on the interplay between large-group and individual transmission is presented.